Title: Expectations
Author: DrawnToDarkness
Rating: K+
Pairing: Jess/Becker
Spoilers: General knowledge of S4 & S5, especially 5x06.
Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me. If they did, we'd be awaiting series seven right about now. No disrespect or copyright infringement is meant.
For: JulieWinchester – request is at the end as it gives it away somewhat.

Apologies if this appears twice - either my laptop's having issues, or the website is.

It wasn't until Abby made the discovery that they were expecting baby diictodons that the thought even occurred to her. After squealing with the thrilled blond – after all, Sid and Nancy were still like pets to Abby and Connor, and Abby was beyond ecstatic that she'd get the chance to meet their offspring – Jess's excitement faded as the thought struck her.

Babies. Pregnant.

Oh God.

She managed to wait until Abby had left the hub to share her discovery with Connor before whipping out her phone, quickly accessing the calendar app where she recorded pretty much every event of her life and counted the days, her eyes growing wider when she came to the terrifying revelation that she was late.

Nine days late.

Certain the colour had drained from her face – it felt like it had – Jess got up from her seat at the ADD and hurried out of the hub, through the Ops room, and straight to the ladies bathroom. Once inside, she shut herself inside an empty stall, locking the door and putting the lid down on the toilet before sitting on it, drawing her knees up to her chest as she stared unseeingly into the air in front of her.

She was late.

But they'd been so careful...

A blush stained her cheeks, her body flooding with warmth as she thought about all of the times they'd been careful.

Her relationship with Becker was still quite new but it'd progressed quite quickly. After three weeks of dating, they'd practically moved in together. With Abby and Connor still living at her flat after their attempt at buying their own had fallen through, Becker had suggested that maybe they should spend most of their time at his so they could have some privacy to get used to their new relationship.

Somewhere along the way, most of her belongings had made the move with her and Becker, bless him, had only smirked at her when she'd realised it. Her blush deepened as she recalled his reaction when she'd flushed and offered to take some of her things back to her flat, his response leaving her with no doubt that she was welcome to start thinking of his flat as being 'home'.

Now, four months in, they were as inseparable as any of the ARC's other couples and the relationship was by far the most serious one she – or he, for that matter – had ever been in. Their jobs kind of made sure of that; neither of them entered into it lightly knowing the dangers they faced on a daily basis and she'd known from the offset that Becker was an 'all or nothing' kind of bloke: once he started something, he was in it for the long-haul, something else he'd reassured her of many, many times.

But a baby? Really?

It wasn't something they'd ever talked about, not really. Oh, he'd met her nephews and had just smiled when her well-meaning sister-in-law had said something about maybe the boys having little cousins to play with at some point but they'd never discussed it.

Their jobs meant it was pretty much a non-issue, anyway. At least until they were ready to turn their backs on the ARC and the dangers working their presented. Jess knew Becker well enough to know he wouldn't be happy working at a job that might leave his children fatherless, and he knew her well enough to know she wouldn't want to have children if there was a chance she'd been left alone to raise them. They both came from broken homes, one through divorce and one through death, and neither of them wanted that for any offspring they were fortunate enough to be blessed with.

So if she was...

"Calm down," she told herself, taking a deep breath to steady her racing heart. "There's no need to panic just yet."

There were a number of reasons she might be late; being pregnant was just one of them. She'd been under a lot of stress recently, what with the anomalies being more unpredictable than usual and having to help Lester prepare a number of reports for review by the Minister and other important people who would decide how much funding the ARC would get in the next financial year.

With that thought in mind, Jess decided to slip out during her lunch break and pay the local chemist a visit. If the afternoon was as uneventful as the morning – barring Abby's unexpected announcement – she might even be able to get away from desk again, take the test, and put her mind at rest before she and Becker went home.

Hopefully before he saw her.

He'd know, of course, that there was something wrong when he saw her. The man had some kind of sixth sense – a Jess sense – just as she was somehow always able to tell when he entered the room even when she had her back to the door.

So all she had to do was avoid Becker, sneak out of the ARC at lunch time and pray for a quiet afternoon.

Simple.

Wasn't it?

The answer was most definitely no.

Almost as soon as she got back to the ADD, there was an anomaly alert. Becker raced to the hub, as did the rest of the team. When they took their black boxes, they all headed out to the trucks.

All but Becker, who lingered beside her. He put his hand on her arm, asking without speaking if she was okay.

It was all Jess could do to force a smile and not blurt out that she thought they might be joining their resident diictodons in welcoming a new addition or two.

Oh, God. Twins! No... No, no, no. So what if it ran in his family (his mother was a twin, and he had two older twin sisters)... It didn't mean that they would end up with two little ones to run around after...

Pushing that thought to the very far recesses of her mind, Jess forced herself to focus on guiding the team to the anomaly site and being their eyes and ears as they did their best to track and contain the pack of little dinosaurs that had come through to their time.

It took almost all afternoon and she knew there was no chance she was going to be able to sneak out without anyone noticing she was gone, not when she had to come up with a cover story for how the furnishings of a show house on a new estate just outside of the city was somehow torn to shreds and fill out all of the necessary paperwork for the insurers who would ultimately have to pay to fix it.

And then there was Becker.

As soon as he made it back to the ARC, he settled himself at his station at the hub – used more often now they were a couple than it had been before – and waited.

Watching her.

Oh, he was working on his report to Lester, of course; Jess knew that. But every time she glanced over her shoulder in his direction, it was to find him staring back, concern and curiosity shining in the depths of his dark eyes. He was just waiting for his opportunity, for the chance to pounce...

... which, ordinarily, she would have no qualms about but that, Jess thought ruefully, was probably what had led her to being in this very strange, very unplanned situation.

Becker didn't get the chance to corner her, though, until the end of the day. She made sure of it. She deliberately kept her back to him, pretending she was focused in the facts and figures on the screen in front of her when really all she could think about was how they'd manage to fit a baby into the nice and cosy flat they now lived in, not to mention with their busy schedules and the rest of their lives and whether or not they'd have a little boy with his smirk and lovely hair or a little girl with her eyes and irrepressible enthusiasm.

After somehow managing to get through the rest of the day without anyone other than Becker noticing that her heart really, really wasn't in it, Jess reluctantly left the ADD and dragged her feet as Becker walked with her from Ops to the locker rooms, the Captain silent but his hand at the small of her back a constant reminder as to his presence and the conversation she knew she couldn't put off any longer.

As they walked along the seemingly endless corridor to the locker room, Jess tried to think of ways to start the conversation in her mind. She could always bring up Abby's announcement about Sid and Nancy, or mention her nephews and the fact her sister-in-law had confided in her that she and Jess's brother were trying to for another baby to complete their family with a little girl, or she could...

"I might be pregnant."

... blurt it out as soon as they made it inside the locker room and found it vacant.

Becker stared at her, an eyebrow arched. Jess stared back, horrified, a hand covering her mouth as though she couldn't believe she'd actually said it aloud.

"I mean... I'm probably not, but I might be. I mean, I'm late, and I'm not normally late, but I've been so busy recently I didn't realise and I've been so stressed so it's probably that but with Abby finding out about Sid and Nancy it got me thinking and I realised... I know it's not planned, and it's definitely not the right time and I'm sorry and please don't be mad at me?"

Becker blinked. He took a step towards her when she felt tears begin to fill her eyes and then suddenly she was surrounded by him, wrapped securely in the circle of his arms as her own wrapped around his middle and clung desperately.

He murmured reassurances against her hair, promises and declarations that only made her eyes sting more though Jess was determined she wasn't going to cry.

Not yet.

Surprising them both, it was Becker who was the rational one. Becker who suggested they stop off at an all-night chemist on their way home and pick up a pregnancy test, Becker who told her not to think about it until they knew for certain they were going to have a baby or not.

He calmed her down, though insisted that they leave her Mini in the ARC's underground car park. She wasn't hysterical or babbling incoherently anymore but he still wasn't about to let her risk driving home when she was so obviously distracted by what ifs and maybes. When he pulled his truck up outside of the pharmacy, it was Becker who disappeared inside to buy the necessary tests – three of them, because he wasn't sure which one would be best.

When they got home, Jess shut herself in the bathroom and emerged a few minutes later, three plastic sticks wrapped in toilet paper clutched in one hand, her mobile phone with its timer set in the other. She put them down on the dresser opposite their bed and sat down heavily, hanging her head. In mere seconds, Becker was sat beside her, his arm around her shoulders in silent support.

"It won't be the end of the world if you are," he told her after a short pause, dropping a soft kiss to the crown of her head. "I know it's not what we planned but if you are... We'll work it out."

"I always wanted children one day," Jess said in response a few moments later, her voice quiet but still somehow loud in the otherwise quiet room. "But right now... With what we do... I don't know how I feel about bringing a child into the world when we're still not sure what the future holds."

And that was the crux of the matter.

After the New Dawn fiasco, everyone had believed the threat to the future was over. Abby and Connor had started planning their wedding, Emily had moved in with Matt and was looking forward to settling once and for all in her new time, Jess and Becker had begun their relationship... And then Matt had dropped another bombshell on them, confessing that he'd been visited by a future version of himself and that he wasn't sure if what they'd done had worked to change the horrific future that waited for them.

Yes, it was years away. Decades – centuries, even. But still, was it right to bring a child into the world when they knew there was a chance it was all going to end in disaster?

"We could walk away," Becker told her softly, not as reluctantly as she'd expected, obviously willing to do it for the sake of her and their imaginary child. "Find somewhere safe, away from everything. We could give having a normal life a go."

It was, strangely, quite tempting. The thought of being together, away from the ARC, having normal nine-to-five jobs and not having to worry that every morning they woke up together might end up being their last if he got hurt dealing with an anomaly or something went wrong at the ARC. Being married, having kids, maybe a dog or a cat...

Before Jess could answer, the timer on her phone went off. Her shoulders trembled and Becker's arm slipped from around her.

Without a word, he walked over to the dresser and looked at each test in turn. When he turned back to face her, his expression was carefully blank.

"Negative," he announced quietly. "You're not pregnant, Jess."

And for some reason, it was then the tears came. Tears she was powerless to stop, sobs she couldn't force back.

Becker took her in his arms, easing her into the middle of the bed where he held her as she cried, his hand making slow, circular motions on her back. How long he held her, Jess wasn't sure. All she knew when she managed to compose herself was that the front of his t-shirt was very damp and thank god it was black because she was pretty sure it'd be ruined by mascara stains if it wasn't.

"I don't know why I'm so upset," she whispered, her voice partly muffled against him as she pressed her ear to his chest, listening to the steady thrum of his heartbeat. "It's for the best, isn't it? We're not ready..."

Even she could hear the uncertainty in her voice, the doubt that maybe they were ready and it was just their fear of the unknown holding them back.

"It'll happen when it's time," he said instead, the quiet assuredness in his voice easing the knot that had formed in her chest. "One day, Jess. When it's the right time, whether we're ready for it or not."

And with all of her heart, Jess hoped he was right.

End.

For JulieWinchester, who requested: "Jess thinking she might be pregnant and worrying over how to tell Becker, but in the end she ends up not being pregnant, though she did tell him her suspicions." Hope it was somewhat what you were hoping for!

... And I am now very, very tempted to write a Jess/Becker baby!fic. Just because I think it'd be adorable. Hmm. Well, maybe one day! ;)